An interview with an official from the Karenni Nationalities Defence Force (KNDF) Central Investigation Task Force (ITF)
November 25, 2022
There have been threats and fraudulent demands for money in Karenni State for various reasons, including revolution as a pretext. The Karenni Nationalities Defence Force (KNDF) announced on November 23 that it has apprehended the people demanding money and that people can report to the organization.
An official from the KNDF’s Investigation Task Force was interviewed about the matter to get his opinion on the situation and how they plan to resolve it.
Q: Can you tell me what’s the purpose of publishing the statement about the fradulent demands for money?
A: The main purpose of the statement is a request. Rather than publicly identify anyone, we wanted to inform all the people involved about the situation as we work out the problem. So basically, as written in the statement, we’ve figured out the whole process of extortion and are waiting for changes to be made. Although we’ve not been able to make any arrests, we’ve kind of figured out who they were. We’ve seen this kind of situation in the past, and these things haven’t gone away and are becoming more frequent. That’s why we made this announcement for everyone involved, so that the public can prevent it to some extent. We also want to let the public know how to deal with this kind of situation.
Q: In your statement, you say that you’ve caught perpetrators in the act in the past. How many cases of extortion have there been so far? How many arrests have you made?
A: By saying that we’ve made arrests in the past, we mean that we’ve closely investigated or monitored such crimes rather than arresting the perpetrators. We’ve identified them, but we’ve not arrested them as perpetrators. Instead,we’ve used other means, such as asking them to return the money, or intervening and preventing the crimes.The amount of money is hundreds of thousands of kyat.
Since the establishment of the KNDF, there have been a certain number of cases in which such crimes have been solved. There were such cases in the early days. After the establishment of the ITF, we’ve received complaints about two or three times. In some of them, as I said, we found out exactly who the perpetrators were. Some cases couldn’t be investigated at all. I guess there were cases that we’ve no knowledge of.
Q: How did you deal with those you arrested?
A: Before the ITF was established, we couldn’t intervene effectively. We could only investigate who was who and get eyewitnesses to reveal such things. That was what we did in the early days. But after the ITF was formed, we were able to catch some in the act, and we asked those responsible to return the money and informed those responsible to take action. We did these things. This means that we can only take limited action in a situation that’s not within our organization. When such cases happen within KNDF, we can take more effective and strict measures.
Q: Are those who extort money an armed group? Who’re they? Does their group have a name?
A: They belong to different groups. First, some of them in the groups are the ones who’re actually fighting in the armed revolution. But I’m not saying that this is because of the decision of the whole group they belong to. Some members of the groups do it either individually or together in groups of two, three or four. I don’t think we can attribute this to the whole group.
Secondly, it could be those who were part of an armed organization or were involved in the revolution in some way. But they were dismissed for a crime or for other reasons. Such people join together in a group of two, three, four or five members and extort money under the guise of a larger organization.
Sometimes they act under the guise of KNDF, PDF or EAO to commit extortion. That’s what some groups do. Some of them are either part of the ground forces or the forces that are deployed on the ground for security or operational reasons. Either out of necessity or because they don’t understand, they sometimes ask the public for money in the form of donations or taxes. In some cases, for example, they ask for money from passing trucks. So we can say with certainty that the people in our battalions have always been instructed to stay as far away from such cases as possible.
Q: How many similar threats are there among the general population?
A: We’ve to talk about this in two parts. Usually, people deal with one of the organizations in their routine activities in an area. There are cases when they’re asked to pay money or tolls when they pass checkpoints in areas controlled by the KNDF or another armed organization, or when they’re caught with prohibited goods or for some other reason. It also happens that their cars are confiscated and then they’re asked to pick them up at a later time. The second part is aimed more at business owners. These are similar cases where they demand a larger sum of money under the pretext of the revolution. Some demand money for different reasons. Some cases involved millions of kyats. We can’t state exact number, but it’s becoming more and more frequent. Most of us here are from Demoso, Loikaw, Pekon and Mobye. In the more populated areas, there may be a few business owners. But since the fighting broke out, not many people who’re called business owners are left. It is like a battlefield. There’s no such thing as influential businessmen in the area. There are only a handful of them in Loikaw. But some have left the town because of financial difficulties after the fighting broke out. Such cases are more frequent because there aren’t many people left.
Q: Is there any connection between previous arrests? What kind of connections, if any?
A: In the past, we didn’t use the term ‘arrest,” but there were connections between cases, such as when a person in one case was involved in another case. So we’d to mediate and supervise between the people involved, and we ended up making a request in today’s announcement.
Q: How do you plan to inform the public about such threats through the media?
A: We’d like to urge the public, especially the people of Karenni, not to give into to such threats for money, regardless of the organization. We understand that there may be life threats and security concerns. But the public can report to the KNDF if they want to. We investigate any crime in the areas that are within our reach with the concern that it may involve our KNDF members. We investigate every case that’s reported to us. So there have been some cases that we’ve been able to prevent. There may be other problems that we can get a handle on. We’d be able to take effective and strict measures if our members were involved in such fradulent cases. I think we could also mediate when members of other organizations commit such things. That’s our advice to people if they’re in a similar situation, and we also want them to support the revolution. There are campaigns and fundraising activities and projects of the respective organizations. There are also individual fundraisers. People can contact them and donate through them or the fundraisers of the respective battalions or organizations. There are people who are supporting the revolution. People can contact them and donate. Or people can donate through their respective Facebook pages. I think these ways of supporting the revolution are more effective. We’ve no reason to believe that the money we give away to anonymous threats will go to the revolution’s coffers. I’d like to claim that these are just threats that have nothing to do with the revolution.
Q: Your statement says that you’ll take measures. What kind of measures will these be?
A: We’ll take strict and effective measures when it comes to members of the KNDF. We’ve a special military law that clearly states how punishments will be imposed in accordance with the law. If the perpetrators are from other organizations, we request them. We simply try to work together to stop such actions. If the public report to us about extortion, the KNDF may refer the case to the ITF, which will be able to arrest the perpetrators and take action, regardless of who’s involved in the case. However, I hope that such a thing won’t happen. First, we take clear actions when such crimes are committed by KNDF members. Second, we solve the situation by cooperating when crimes are committed by members of other groups. If it’s not the armed groups but just one or two individuals who gather and demand money on various pretexts and behave like bandits, we’ll hand them over to the Karenni State Police (KSP).
Sent by Maw Mi Myar (The Kantarawaddy Times)
